


Approximately Dark

by d__T



Category: Near Dark (1987)
Genre: Boy That Escalated Quickly, Multi, Offscreen noncon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Teamwork makes the dream work, Vampires, Vanpires, canon compliant character death, general racism, incidental spanish language dialog, onscreen torture, period typical 'gay coded character is a predator' tropes, tags updated per request or if I write the next chapter, taken uncritically to the logical extreme
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 05:14:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19761325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d__T/pseuds/d__T
Summary: Indigo gets picked up by a vampire in an arcade. Everything goes bad and gets worse right quick.





	Approximately Dark

"Hey, handsome."

Indigo flicks his eyes away from the Missile Commander arcade screen for the briefest moment. There’s a slim, short haired girl flirting at him. “You must be mistaken, I’m Asian.”

She laughs and then gasps when he makes a daring save in the game. “That don’t matter to me.”

“Hm.” He hammers on the middle fire button, palming the track-ball with intense accuracy. “Still don’t think I’m your type.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“Fuck.” Indigo just lost a city and a missile placement. This game isn’t gonna last much longer and then he’ll have no excuse to not pay attention to her. “You ain’t my type, that’s all.”

He should have shut the hell his mouth; the game flashes a violent red and white and blue pattern of GAME OVER screens at him. It hurts his eyes and he turns away to face her. It’s not much better; her aura is strong enough for him to see without touching her and it looks like curling ash. “A pretty face and cute tits don’t overcome that kind of incompatibility.” 

She blinks. “Usually I’m the pretty one, but maybe you’ll like my brother. He’s got an… incompatibility.”

He’d thought her flinch was at seeing his whole face and the scar that twists up from the corner of his mouth to his left eye but no, she’s offering him her brother. “You always whore him out like this?”

“He does it himself.” She snorts. “I’ll go get him.”

She turns away from him and disappears into the press of the crowded arcade. Indigo steps back, going the other way. He pulls off his overshirt and ties it around his waist before tying his hair back to change his appearance up. He’s gotta get the hell out of here.

He’s got three angles on two exit doors when a hand grabs his shoulder, pulling him sideways as a low cocky voice says, “Tryna run away from me, pretty?”

Indigo looks up the arm; heavy bracelets, leather jacket, bandanna tied around his neck, chains too. Shaggy dark hair and- brown eyes. This might go some other way, if they were blue. “Was thinkin my exit might be timely, yeah.”

The man smirks and it is a vicious terrible smirk. Indigo bares his teeth right back at it.

The girl interjects, “This is Severen.”

“Severen, huh?” Indigo leans on it like his name is an insult. They don’t look related at all, except for their auras. “What you want me for when you got a pretty little thing like her pulling for you?”

“Go away, Mae.” Severen says, flicking her off of his arm like a bug.

She scoots away like she doesn’t want to be there.

Indigo doesn’t like the look of that, and likes it even less when Severen speaks again. “You saying I’d fuck her? I’d _kill her_ but it wouldn’t take.”

“So you’re gonna kill me.”

“Don’t sound so eager.” Severen leers. “We can play a lil first.”

Indigo flicks a quarter up between his fingers like a blade. It’s a little too dirty to gleam in the dull arcade light. “My game.”

Severen licks his lips. “Your game.”

Indigo goes back to the Missile Commander console. Severen produces a quarter and drops it into the machine beside Indigo’s quarter. Indigo pops the two player button and lets Severen take first play.

Severen does well, but not well enough, and Indigo can feel his descent into anger radiating off of him. His concentration is such that Indigo thinks he could slip away. So he does, three sleek steps and then he bolts for the door, motorcycle key in his hand ready for the ignition.

He gets out the door, dodges families along the side of the building, sees a blacked out van, jams the key into his motorcycle even as he slings a leg over, shoulders into his jacket and slams his helmet on.

Rear wheel spits dirt and he peels out of the lot, already at the top of first gear and running for second. 

He looks behind him and the blacked out van is coming after him like a particularly square ghost. He can lose them in the night if he gets out of earshot. 

He grabs an alley, nearly dropping the bike in the corner and then blitzes down the block, two more corners to get behind the van, across the highway and into the residential district on the other side. He quiets the bike, rolling slowly, heels skimming the asphalt as he looks for a prime shadow with a good exit to disappear in.

Shadow found, he finishes zipping up his jacket and buckling his helmet properly. Safety first, and all that.

The van swings down the residential street; square headlights, square grill. Aw fuck. They’re gonna run him like a rabbit with a hound. The van crawls by his hiding spot and then stops.

He peels out. They’re gonna have to back the damn thing around and he’ll be gone by then.

Indigo shrieks through the residential area, pouring out the other side onto a parallel thoroughfare, running every traffic light he can, exit for the coastal highway. He hits the highway at 120 and climbing.

“What’s got you in a rush?” Renholder asks him.

“Got scoped at the arcade for a queer and now they’re hunting me. Blacked out van, square shit. I shook them on 10, but he looked like-” Indigo waves his hand. “I got a bad feeling about them ‘cause that’s a crew and the cunt wasn’t operating alone.”

Indigo hasn’t taken his jacket off. “I’m getting my rifle and going up in the attic for a bit.”

Renholder nods. “Do you want company?”

“ehhhhh- yeah. Get Whisper the hell out of here, though. It’s gonna be ugly if they come around.”

Renholder grabs her heavy jacket, the one with aluminum plate armor, and follows him to the faux faux-mantlepiece. Indigo pulls down his rifle and gets a box of shells out of the cupboard for both of them as Renholder unhooks her shotgun and slings the strap over her shoulder. “Thanks. I’ll go get Whisper.”

“Thanks.” Indigo trots up the stairs, two at a time. The attic is still hellishly hot from the daytime but the sightlines up and down the street are impeccable.

The garage opens and Whisper rolls out in the sleeper. The car takes a deft foot to roll that sedately; it’s got enough horsepower to outrun everything short of a supersport bike. Whisper nudges it out onto the street and grumbles away, getting out of the residential area before letting loose on it. They’ll be far away by the time anything happens.

Renholder joins him up in the attic. “Are you seeing things?”

“His eyes were brown and his hands were real. He’d have never had a girl making pulls for him.” Indigo clicks his tongue. “He’s real alright. He’s got a fucked up aura, his girl too. So strong I could see it on the van.”

“Huh.” Renholder murmurs.

They wait, alert and shoulders pressed together in solid reassurance. Neighbors come and go, mostly come, mostly already come home by this time of night. Better that they miss this.

And then the van turns the end of the street. The windows are rolled down now. 

"That's them." Indigo pauses, trying to distinguish the auras but the whole thing feels like a burned out firepit. "There's at least five people in there." 

"Plan?" 

"I shoot to kill, and anyone that makes it to the front door, you take their head off. Expect three." 

"Will do." Renholder trots downstairs. 

Indigo inhales and exhales slowly. Checks the magazine and with his thumb and snaps it back in. They're close now. 

He sights and fires: front tire, front quarter, diagonal through the windshield to the passenger, driver. 

The crack of the rifle is obscenely loud in the suburban night. 

There's a third person in the front; he fires again. 

The van whales to a stop in the middle of the road. Lights are coming on up and down the street. 

The police will be here soon. 

Four people get out of the van. Indigo sees the glint of a weapon and gets flat just before the lower half of the window he'd opened to shoot through shatters. 

He adjusts his angle and lines up body shots on all four figures. 

He hits all of them, none of them go down. Severen drops his baseball bat. 

Indigo stuffs a full magazine into his rifle as he runs down the stairs. 

He sees an old man at the front door, bleeding from the heart as he shouts at the closed door. He watches in slow motion as Renholder opens the door, grits out  _stay the fuck out of my house_ and blows the man's head off.

The two behind him flinch away from the splatter. Renholder levels again and fires at Severen. Severen goes down. 

Renholder slams the door shut again, deadbolting it. "Well, they don't like to die." 

Mae is out there still, oddly forlorn, and another older woman who has sort of scraped the larger pieces of the man's head to be near each other with the toe of her boot and then come to the door. She looks angry. 

"No shit." 

The red and blue flicker of police lights appears in sync with the wail of sirens. "Fuck. Get our helmets and lose the rifle." 

"Gotchya."

The two women look up like started animals, grab the downed men and drag them back towards the disabled van. There's what looks like a kid changing the damaged wheel- he's almost done. The older woman takes over, slinging the dead spare into the back of the van and peeling out leaving Renholder overlooking a sidewalk covered and blood and cops. 

"Ma'am! Put the gun down." 

Renholder raises both hands before gingerly leaning over to place the shotgun on the ground. She nudges it away with her foot, but not too far away. 

"The hell happened here?" 

Renholder looks the cop in the eye. "Castle defense. The bastards in the van tracked my man home and came onto my property." 

"The neighbors say you fired first." 

"Lawyer." 

The cop hits her in the face. "Lawyer my ass." 

Renholder spits. "I think I will, actually." 

"Where's your 'man'?"

"Tol' him to fuck off and let me deal with it." 

“So you don’t know where he is?”

“No sir.”

“We’ll have to search the premises.”

“No, sir.”

“You’re a suspect in a murder, ma’am.”

Renholder shows her teeth. “Ain’t no bodies.’

“They’ll turn up eventually.” The cop takes her wrists and while she wants to resist, she’s mouthed off far more than enough to endanger her life, so she lets him cuff her.

“Is that a threat?”

The cop grins. It’s a threat. “Come with me.”

Indigo runs south until he hits the river. There’s a bridge and a shitty little park underneath. He rolls the bike down the path under the bridge and parks beside the sleek black shape of Whisper’s car. Whisper themself is sitting on the hood, watching him, waiting for him to pull off his helmet. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Renholder’s not- she’s probably getting jail for manslaughter.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, I got read for a faggot in the arcade and then they decided to follow me home and kill me about it. They wouldn’t stay down when I got them with the rifle, though, so I don’t think they’re human. 

“Ah.” Whisper says. “What’s the plan?”

“I don’t know yet.” Indigo sighs, rubbing his face. “They can track me by smell I’m pretty sure. I want to get Renholder before they do, or the cops kill her. It’s us or them.”

Whisper nods. “C’mere.”

Indigo clambers onto the hood beside Whisper where Whisper promptly flops over his legs. “Hey, there.”

“Do you want me to get Renholder, or as backup?”

Indigo sighs. “I’m the one that’s actually married to her, so I ought to be the one to go get her. Keeps you from being known for a bit longer, too. And then we’re going hunting.”

“Found you a lawyer.” The cop says.

Renholder looks up through the bars, coldly evaluating the cop and his lawyer. The lawyer is neatly dressed and pleasantly smiling and looking exactly like one of the bastards from earlier. The one who dragged the older man away, in fact. “I want a different one.”

“This is the only one available at this time of night.”

The lawyer smiles more broadly.

“Fine.”

“Come with me.” The lawyer says.

“Sure you wanna be alone in a room with me?” Renholder stands up. The lawyer lady comes up to her shoulder. “I’m in here for, whatsit, manslaughter.”

The lawyer lady smiles patronizingly. “You don’t scare me.”

The cop ushers them into a concrete room and anchors Renholder’s cuffs to the table. She can sit or stand, but it’s all the same patch of concrete and steel table.

“How’s the husband?” Renholder asks, just to be a dick.

“He’s coming around.” The lawyer lady says, staying standing even as Renholder sits like she owns the table.

“I’ll make it simple for you. Your boy Indigo should have gone with Severen and we all could have been saved a lot of inconvenience. You’re coming with us.”

“I don’t think so.” Renholder tests her chains. Secure, unfortunately. “You got a name?”

“Gina.”

“Go fuck yourself, Gina.”

“I don’t have to, my husband’s alive and will remain that way.  _Unlike yours_ .”

“And you got five kids in a van with you, I bet your sex life is just _great_.” Renholder sneers. “What are you, a ghoul?”

“Oh, you’re clever. Sure, some kind of ghoul.” Gina responds pleasantly as she paces around behind Renholder. “It’s a pity your hair is so short.”

Renholder is about to snap back about it when Gina bites her. “What the hell! What are you doing?”

“You’re one of us now.” Gina goes to the door and knocks at it. “Guard!”

“No, the fuck! I am not.”

The door opens and Gina speaks to the guard. “She’s gotten agitated and should go back to her cell now.”

“Yes ma’am.”

There’s a cold drowsiness coming over her, and she staggers in the guard’s hands. It feels like the flu, almost, but it’s moving too fast, the chills are already here. She knew they were gonna try to kill her, but what the hell is this?

She rots there into the next night, sweating and hallucinating, food becoming repulsive in every way. Time is gone.

Gina passes her a cup through the bars. It looks like opaque cough syrup. “Drink this, you’ll feel better.”

She does, powerless to resist.

Clarity hits her like a bat to the head. “You’re vampires.”

“And now you are too. You’re coming with me.”

“Nope.”

“Come with me and your record will be gone.”

“You’re cute when you lie.”

Gina leans up against the bars. “They’re all under my thrall. I can make them lose your record and forget you were ever here.”

“Do I get that power?”

“Eventually.”

If it gets her out of here, it’s a plan. “Deal. Let’s go.”

Indigo wakes up on the dusty floor of the garage, full of brutally familiar pain. The sun is burning a streak across his face. His hands and feet are bound. Severen is sitting in a deep shadow, watching him. 

“So you’re the kind of shit that likes to play with his food, huh? Now if you’d asked nice, you mighta gotten it for free just ‘cause of that pretty face. Now you owe me.”

“You can’t make me pay.” Severen scoffs.

“Yeah.” Indigo says. “I will.”

“You can’t make me do shit, boy.” Severen sneers. “Your girl is one of ours now.”

“You sound awful certain for a dumb bitch.”

Severen laughs. “I like your mouth. Maybe I’ll use it again.”

“Go ahead, I’ll put it on your tab.”

“You don’t give a shit, do you?”

“Do you think your special?”

Severen leans over him, carefully avoiding the sunbeam. “I _know_ I’m special.”

“Oh, you’re cute.”

Severen kicks him. “They said to bring you alive but not _how_ alive. And we got time.”

“Tell me again about how certain you are that Renholder is one of yours now?” Indigo asks. “You sound so sweet when you’re wrong.”

“Diamondback turned her in her jail cell. She’s a vampire now. _Obligate blood sucker_.” Severen grins. “And you’re gonna be her first kill.”

“Poetic, that.” Indigo lolls, as he can do little else.

“Glad you see it.” Severen sounds more disappointed than glad. “You were supposed to be my kill.”

“Well, that’s what playing with your food gets you. Dinner delayed and bullet holes in your jacket.”

Severen hisses. “I like it when it struggles.”

“My rate for rough play is quite high and the clock is ticking.” Indigo pops his tongue. “You might want to make the most of your time.”

Severen kicks him again. “I got more time than you.”

Indigo wheezes.

Whisper hits Severen with a crowbar, crumpling the back of his neck in. Severen falls over and doesn’t move.

Whisper immediately goes and cuts the ties holding Indigo. “Cavalry’s here.”

“I fucking love you.” Indigo murmurs into their shoulder.

Severen groans.

“Would you get me a whole bunch of tomato stakes and a hammer, please?”

Whisper grins. “Right on it.”

Indigo hoists himself only to discover that he’s lame in his bad knee again, and limps over to the workbench. There’s zip ties scattered all across it. He scoops up a generous handful.

Indigo limps back over to Severen and zips his hands and feet together, just like Severen had done to him. He’s got time to kill and a safety margin to build, so he builds up the zip ties into thick bundles.

Severen groans, coming back under his hands.

“Time for you to pay up.” Indigo has a stroke of genius and assembles big ziptie, big enough to go between Severen’s jaws and around the still squishy back of his head. Indigo fits it into place and yanks down on it as hard as he can, forcing the plastic to bite in. Severen coughs, uncoordinated, autonomic.

Whisper returns with the stakes and a hammer. “Oh, shit.”

“Thanks. He’s kind of a charming guy so only the best for him.” Indigo hammers one stake into the yard on the edge of a shadow. Then he drags Severen over and drops his booted feet over the stake. Indigo hammers another one in on the other side of the zip ties, stretching his feet apart against the bonds and pinning him there.

Severen writhes, trying to pull his whole body into the shadow and failing until Indigo steps between him and the sun. “I can’t make you do anything, huh?

“What do you want.”

“Aw, breaking so easily! I’m proud of you. Where’d they take Renholder?”

“Renholder’s dead now! She’ll kill you!”

Indigo steps aside and Severen’s legs start smoking from the sunlight. “That sounds like a future me problem.”

Severen starts crying as one of his legs catches on fire properly. “Motel _motel motel_ , up the highway.”

Indigo puts his shadow back over Severen, but Severen doesn’t spontaneously decombust. Indigo pats at the flames, and then decides that he doesn’t care that much. “Which one?”

“Five! Five, Please!”

Indigo steps aside again and kicks Severen fully into the sun.

Severen catches immediately, clothes burning and zip ties melting just before he stops writhing.

Indigo watches him until there’s just ash and a smoking patch in the grass.

“Holy shit, Indigo.”

Whisper’s voice startles him. The screaming had been- “Yeah, are you okay?”

“Are  _you_?”

“Never better.” Indigo limps back into the garage. Renholder’s helmet is on her bike, looking at him. He swaps the visor for her darkest day one, and stuffs her riding gloves into it. “The wagon has a fire extinguisher and a blanket, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re driving, let’s go.”

The Motel 5 looms up over the parking lot in all its squat three story grey glory. Whisper parks the wagon, angled for fast escape. The blacked out van is in the closest row of cars to the building and knowing what he knows about Severen, he bets their room is close by.

There’s a cleaning lady up on the walkway for the second floor, though. He tucks Renholder’s helmet and gloves under his arm and trots up the stairs to talk to her.

“Excuse me- I’m looking for-” He points down at the battered van in the lot. She looks at it, then at him, eyes wide, and points straight down.

“Straight down? Thank you.”

“Creo que están locos.”

“Por qué?” Indigo is hoping that he can hold up his end of this conversation.

“Ellos tiran cosas y gritan.”

“Ah.” Indigo nods. “Uh. Necesito tu tarjeta para la puerta.”

“No, es solo para me.” She shakes her head.

“No te preocupes.” Indigo fishes out his wallet and hands her forty dollars. “Es solo por un munito. Te lo devolveré.”

“Solamente un munito.” She hands him the card.

“Much gracias. Ir a esconderse.”

She takes her cart and goes away from him and the stairs down. Indigo goes back down the stairs, counts doors, and swipes the card into the lock. It chirps green at him.

He bangs the door all the way open, flicks the card away and down the walkway, and steps in. “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”People are diving every which way, there’s loose bullets on the table. Renholder is sitting on the end of the nearest bed, unmoving but alert. She’s wearing her jacket and surrounded by the same black ash aura as everyone else. Almost the best possible situation. “REN.”

“Put it on.” He throws her helmet at her and draws his pistol from the back of his belt.

She jams the helmet on, pulling her gloves on as she surges up and charges straight at him. Indigo can’t get a clean shot around her in the space, so he backs the hell up and out the door so that she doesn’t bull him over when she goes through the door.

There’s gunfire. Renholder jerks and keeps coming. Indigo yells. “WAGON.”

He fires one shot over her shoulder to keep them down and then she’s snatched him up and is carrying him at speed to the wagon. The back hatch is open; she tosses him in, herself after, and yanks the strap to close the door from the inside.

Whisper floors the wagon out of the parking lot.


End file.
